Race night report, July 25, 2016

Very light air and changing weather conditions challenged the sailors for the final night in Summer Series 1.

As the tail end of a thunderstorm was blowing through the area, the racers were debating whether or not to hit the water. The clouds certainly looked like they had passed, and sunny skies were above, but most folks waited a good half-hour without any thunder or lightning before rigging up. This meant that we only got 2 short races (rather than the planned 3) in for the night, and several boats didn’t make the 1st race either.

The first race saw an extremely close contest between Lino/Dominic (Albacore) vs Ken/Corinne (Albacore). As Ken/Corinne were coming up to the leeward mark on the last leg, Lino/Dominic made a sneaky play and overlapped the boat, forcing Ken/Corinne to give mark room. The finish was very close with Lino/Dominic taking the race and Jennie/Andrew (Albacore) coming in 3rd followed by a 4th place OCF for Chunshu (Laser).

The second race was a bit better attended with Jason/Norm (29er) joining the fray. A tough start saw a few boats struggle to get on port tack in a light wind shift, with Jason/Norm and Lino/Dominic fighting for a puff of air at the pin end. A few decent gusts came and we still had a fairly close race rounding the windward mark. Jason/Norm put their spinnaker up, but the shift in the wind meant the gybe mark was almost dead downwind, and they couldn’t catch the Albacores. The next leg was fairly processional, and a shifty final upwind to a shortened course windward mark meant Ken/Corinne took the race, followed by Jennie/Andrew, Lino/Dominic, Jason/Norm and Chunshu.

Summer Series 1 Results

What a great series it has been! We had 3 good windy nights, and two lighter air nights with 11 races run in total (no cancelled races!) and awesome turnout. We were fortunate enough to have guest sailors (including Dominic, Andrew, and Jasper) and 30 sailors took part in at least one race. It is my pleasure to announce those who have bragging rights for the next 5 weeks:

Honourable mention: This race series ran so smoothly due to the efforts of our Principal Race Officer (PRO) Mario Poirier who also ran the Spring Series. Mario was out in the RC boat every single Monday ensuring that the course was set up, that the results were recorded, and that everything was run smoothly. Mario will be out of town for Summer Series 2, so we probably won’t see courses set quite so square to the wind for a while…

Complete Season Results

We’re 2/3 the way through the season, with 5 race nights left. Because we only completed 4 races in the Spring Series, the season more closely resembles the Summer Series 1, but there’s still time to shift things around. Ken E leads the scoring (28 points) and Jason is a distant second (41 points). Corinne is positioned third (59 points), but Dominic is coming on strong (63 points). There’s still lots of time for things to shift (perhaps up to 150 points depending on how many races we get in during the fall) so nothing is set in stone yet.